


the lights that stop me turn to stone

by Anonymous



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26425330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Many things have come out of this summer- trials, tribulations, achievements and success.Secretly, Jos thinks that Ben Foakes has been the best thing to come out of it yet.Or alternatively,A look at Jos Buttler through the summer, with a bit of Ben Foakes and the rest of the team.
Relationships: Ben Stokes/Mark Wood, Jos Buttler/Ben Foakes
Comments: 4
Kudos: 7
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I blame Chelsea's hour long discord convo about the English team for this.
> 
> For clarity:  
> Ben Foakes - Ben  
> Ben Stokes - Stokes
> 
> Dom Bess - Dom  
> Dom Sibley - Sibley

He reads an article during an innings break in Cape Town, about Ben Foakes speaking up for the first time about his loss of form in county cricket. 

It's only briefly about Ben really, they've quoted some words from him and used it as a launchpad for a bigger picture.

The piece is well-written, a general scathing commentary on the yo-yo of positions fringe players are required to commit to, on the as they termed 'inexplicable' backing of certain players and the faithless dropping of promising players based on an opaque selection process.

He doesn't need to scroll down to the end, he can already see the highlighted blue of his name in the paragraph belonging to those they've decided are the wasted projects. 

Joe always rolls his eyes when he approaches him about his concerns, shoving his back and telling him "we'll wait until you come good, Jos, don't worry."

But it's not himself he's worried about, not really. He doesn't think he'll be dropped. But he genuinely, earnestly wonders if he should be dropped.

There's a link to the interview with Ben the article references briefly in the beginning. He looks a bit thinner, Jos thinks, a little more haggard, but it's been a year since he's seen him in person so he can't really remember what he looked like before.

A sudden wave of guilt passes over him, as he realises that he hadn't even reached out to the man since his ejection from the test squad in the West Indies, so wrapped in his own test preparation and talks about the world cup.

He thinks he vaguely remembers sending him a consolatory text, but nothing after that.

"Everyone on the pitch in five," Joe hollers to the dressing room, startling Jos out of his thoughts.

He slides down the power button, tossing his phone to the side as everyone starts to get up and slowly make their way down.

He reaches for the keeping gloves, a strange squeezing feeling settling in the chassis of his ribs as his fingers stretch in the confines of the gloves.

~

He plans to reach out to Ben, but it falls through when he realises that he's changed his number. He thinks Ollie or Rory might have his new number as club-mates, but he's not sure what he would even say to him so he doesn't ask.

It turns out later that he doesn't even have to reach out himself.

They come back from South Africa and almost immediately head to Sri Lanka for another series.

There's whispers of cancelling the tour among the rising number of infections back home. They watch the local news on the hotel TV, grimly observing the scientists and experts debating amongst themselves over the best course of action and the worst possible outcomes of the pandemic.

They scroll through the list of vulnerable categories of people again, urging them to stay home, and out the corner of his eye, he can see Jimmy staring at the back of Stuart's head. It takes a moment, but then it clicks and he remembers that Stuart's asthmatic, with his one and a half lungs.

It hits him then, how dangerous this all is.

Joe disappears in meeting after meeting with the coaches, face drawn, and delaying the inevitable. He confides in Jos after that there's pressure to cancel the tour- and that a part of him wants it to be cancelled too.

"I want to play cricket," Joe says, twisting his ring around his finger, "but I'm worried about everyone back home, you know? I don't think I can concentrate at all."

True to his word, they receive a notice halfway through a tour match. 

The tour has been cancelled, and the team let out a breath of relief, hurrying to get their already packed suitcases and head back home.

Months pass and Jos is distantly aware of the ECB making plans for series over the summer, in a bio-secure 'bubble' as they call it, in order to make back the money that the cancelled series have been haemorrhaging from their funds.

Frankly, he's had enough of facetime poker nights and yoga challenges with the team in the emptiness of his apartment for a lifetime, so when the training squad is announced and his name is on the sheet, he's ecstatic (though not really surprised).

And there, a few rows under his is Ben Foakes' name.

It's a squad of 55, and Ben as one of the best players in the country would clearly be included, but still, his name drops a small pit in Jos' stomach, though he's not sure why.

He's had rivalries for his spot in the past, but it's never felt like this, never so prominent in his mind. In the early days of the ODI team, he was fighting for a place with Jonny, but it was more friendly than anything, with no lingering tension between them.

There was, of course, the semi-rivalry with Craig, but he tries not to think about that too much, or the guilt will start to set in.

Those were white-ball teams, where he felt confident that he could compete with the very best, so competition was a challenge and not something to be feared. In red ball, he's at sea. He'll go out and think he's done well, only to see various think-pieces and comments detailing everything he's done wrong in the span of one innings.

It's hard to be confident in your game when everyone's telling you that you shouldn't be.

Every time Craig would spot him reading a scathing article in a newspaper or such he'd wrestle it out his hands and make Jos watch as he burnt it to ashes in the fireplace.

"That's where that belongs," he'd say, rubbing his hands off and leaning back.

He misses Craig fiercely, but he thinks he's burnt one too many bridges to revisit their friendship that morphed into cold rivalry. 

He fucked up with Craig, and let the competition ruin whatever they had. He's nowhere near as close with Ben, but he decides right there and then that he wants to be close.

They're going to be friends, and support each other, and he won't fuck it up this time, Jos vows, rolling the squad announcement up carefully.

~

He takes Joe aside the night they arrive at the training grounds and asks if they've drawn up the room pairings for the hotel yet.

Joe raises his eyebrows inquiringly. "Why? Anyone, in particular, you're looking to avoid? I mean I know I snored a lot the last time we roomed but I was honestly stressed so-"

"No, I'm not trying to avoid anyone and I don't really care about your snoring anyway," Jos cuts him off, "I just wanted to room with Ben."

"Stokesy? Doesn't he usually room with Chris because they head to bed at the same time?"

"No, not that Ben. Foakes, I uh, want to room with Ben Foakes."

Joe leans back on his right leg, watching him consideringly. "You've gotten close with him recently?"

"Not really no," he answers truthfully, "but that's the aim. I just don't want there to be any hard feelings between us."

Joe smiles, thumping Jos on the back. "Ah, you're a good man. Sure yeah, I'll talk to management and ask. It'll be good for you two to feed off each other I think, both personality-wise and in cricketing."

Jos isn't sure if wanting to make amends with someone to assuage his own guilty conscience is the sign of a good man, but he takes the compliment anyway.

True to his word, Joe skips past his table at dinner, clunkily depositing a set of keys by Jos' plate. He winks as he walks away, and Jos isn't sure what that's meant to mean, and knowing Joe, he isn't sure that he wants to know. 

He lifts the keys up, and there on the threadbare tag attached to the ring, Ben's name and his have been hastily scrawled in marker. He can feel the itch of someone's gaze on him, and when he looks up it turns out to be Ben himself, hazel eyes watching him consideringly from the other table.

Jos attempts a polite smile, and Ben returns it with one that leans slightly more towards a grimace and drops his gaze.

It's a start though, he tells himself as he pockets the keys, it's a start.

~

It's awkward at first, which is to be expected.

Ben is a quiet roommate. He keeps his things religiously on his side of the room, is always amenable to Jos' wishes regarding what time to turn off the light at night, and makes hardly a sound when Jos is busy working on match reports for management or on important phone calls with sponsors.

He's unfailingly polite, and Jos hates it.

He's never been a loud, raucous type of person, but Jos' memories of Ben from the Sri Lanka tour are of an effusive, witty keeper hardly seen without a smile. It might've just been the joy of debuting, but his passion for cricket seemed to almost leak out of him, whether he was batting on a windy day with his hair whipping in his eyes or keeping on a dusty, turning pitch, eyes trained on the ball at all times.

This Ben is a lot quieter, a lot more self-contained. The genuine joy he had to be playing is no longer such a noticeable aspect of his game- Jos has watched back highlights from county matches in 2019, and he almost seems like a different batsman in them. 

He knows why, he knows Ben's slightly drawn appearance and poor county numbers are largely due to his unceremonious dropping in the West Indies, but he has no idea how to approach him about it.

Or even if he's reading too much into it.

Maybe Ben is just a very conscientious roommate, and maybe under all the excitement about debuting for England, even in Sri Lanka he was a self-contained, reserved type of person. 

Jos could tell himself that if he hadn't also looked through pictures from the South Africa tour of himself. He almost looks ill while keeping, face haggard and body stooped. It's a sharp contrast to his Test recall in the Pakistan and India series, where he smiled easily between balls, and close up shots of him batting showed a glint in his eyes that has since been extinguished in Test cricket.

Really, he doesn't know how to approach Ben, or help him, because they're in the same situation.

He wants to love Test cricket so badly, but now he just tastes ash in his mouth every time he plays. For Ben, perhaps it's watching everyone else play but him that puts that taste in his mouth.

Ben opens their hotel door with a clatter, startling Jos out of his thoughts.

"Sorry," he apologises, shutting the door more gently behind him.

Jos waves the apology off. "No, no it's fine, just startled me a bit."

Ben smiles tightly in acknowledgment, ending the short conversation by turning his back to Jos and opening up his suitcase, rifling through it with one hand as he puts his earphones in with the other.

Jos sighs.

~

He broaches the subject in a roundabout way later over a game of cards, asking the team if they have any ideas about how to approach Ben and go about fostering a friendship.

"Don't think you need our help making friends, mate." Jack snorts, placing a pair of fives on the table. "You're Mr International aren't you, travelling around the world for tournaments and making friends from all teams."

Jos rolls his eyes. "Yes I'm 'Mr International', and I'm sure Pitbull quakes in fear of me, but right now I need to be Mr National. No, even more local than that. Mr Southampton?"

"Mr Ageas Bowl Hotel?" Dom offers, shuffling his hand of cards.

"That's the one!" Jos clicks his fingers triumphantly. "Need to be the platonic Casanova of my hotel room. I'm focusing all of my friendship energy onto one man, no more Mr International."

"I reckon you should try pick up lines," Mark contributes seriously, completely oblivious to Zak leaning over next to him and eyeing all his cards. "Make loads of little cards and put them everywhere, in his belongings and stuff so wherever he goes he feels complimented and will eventually associate you with good feelings."

"I feel like bombarding him with dozens of pick up line cards in all his belongings is borderline harassment." Rory cautions.

"Piss off mate, you don't get to have an opinion on what counts as harassment with that shocker of a hedge growing on your face. You look like the man on stranger danger posters." Mark fires back with a quick riposte, and without looking up from his cards Rory aims a middle finger at the northerner in reply.

"I might actually try it," Jos says, resting his chin on an open palm. "Maybe just one at first to see his reaction, and then I'll go from there. Only very PG, simple complimentary pick-up lines though," he amends.

Mark nods in appreciation. "Aye, that's a solid plan. In other news though, sorry lads but I have reached Uno!"

Dom looks up in confusion, scratching the back of his ear. "Not sure you need to say Uno in a game of Blackjack mate."

"What do you fucking mean we're playing Blackjack and not Uno-"

~

He decides to just write a nice, genuine compliment on a post-it note rather than an actual pick up line. They're definitely not close enough for that, and he doesn't want Ben to feel creeped out.

He makes up his mind to see how he reacts to the first post-it and go from there.

It turns out that just one is enough.

Ben picks up the post-it note stuck to the outside of his suitcase and reads it in silence, eyebrows raised. "Did you write this?" He asks, turning towards Jos who is lounging on his bed on the opposite side of the room.

He doesn't know if he should go for outright denial or admit to it so he's not lying to him, but he settles on a neutral approach.

"What, the message on the post-it note? Why would you think it was me?"

"You dot your i's with a full circle instead of just a dot." Ben points to a word on the post-it note, and Jos leans forward and ascertains that yes, he does indeed.

"Ah. Well." 

Jos sits there for a second as his brain reboots in order to salvage this situation, severely regretting the day he ever met Mark Wood.

"I think I might put it up on my wall actually," Ben suddenly says, reading it again and smiling slightly, "a bit of positive affirmation to start the day."

"Really?" Slips out of Jos' mouth, but Ben doesn't seem to hear him as he hunts for BluTac in his drawers.

He tries again, this time starting with, "Oh, that's a good idea. It's true what I wrote you know, but I'm just… bad at talking to people so I thought this would be easier."

Ben's hand's pause as they wrap around the stick of BluTac. "You're not bad at talking to people really," he says, looking back at Jos, "I've just made it hard for you to talk to me. I'm sorry, I haven't been fair at all, and I know you've genuinely been trying to make conversation. It's just been a hard couple of months."

He offers Jos a grim smile, and there's something swirling around in his eyes that Jos can't quite place.

"It's fine. What matters is how we act from here." He returns carefully, and Ben's grimace slips into something softer.

"You're right, let's just move forwards." He says, and tears open the BluTac, affixing the post-it note to the mirrored door of the cupboard by his bed. 

The pink note shivers softly against the mirror as the fan whirrs overhead, the words flickering.

_You're the best wicketkeeper I've ever seen._

Ben looks at it a moment, then clucks his tongue in dissatisfaction.

Jos blinks in confusion as the other man turns to his suitcase and begins to dig through it, letting out a shout of triumph when he pulls out a blue notebook from its depths.

Ben grabs a biro from the desk and hurriedly writes something in the book, tongue poking out between his teeth in concentration. He rips it out with a flourish, and, in a move that leaves Jos even more confused, sticks BluTac to the back and places it on the door of Jos' corresponding mirrored cupboard.

The scrap of paper falls weakly to the floor, leaving the BluTac stuck on the cupboard. Jos picks it up, reading the hastily written words emblazoned across it.

_You're the best batsman I've ever seen_

He turns to see Ben already looking at him. "It's true," he says, echoing Jos' earlier words.

Jos feels his lips curl into an involuntary grin as he holds the paper, and a beam of sunlight hits the floor through the slats in the window as Ben quietly grins back.

~

The test series against the West Indies begins on a sour note, both for the team and for Jos individually.

He drops Jermaine Blackwood, unused to the wobble seam on the ball as it comes through, and of course, Blackwood then goes onto make 95 and secure the win for the West Indies. 

Joe doesn't say anything to him about the drop, and Jos' name still appears on the squad announcement for the next test. No one hounds him in the dressing room for the mistake, no one offers much criticism past raised eyebrows and the platitude of 'tough luck mate'.

He almost wishes someone would take him aside and rip into him because the feeling of the calm before the storm is almost worse. 

The seemingly inevitable blow never comes, however, and he turns up to training every day with an ever-growing, sickening sense of not belonging.

"It was a closer game," Ben tells him in consolation, clapping him on the back.

Jos nods half-heartedly and ducks into the ensuite bathroom to vomit into the toilet bowl after Ben leaves. Every time he looks at him all he can think about is the dropped catch, about the sound of the ball smacking against his fingertips and into the ground. He knows that if it had been Ben in his place, he wouldn't have missed it.

God, sometimes he wishes it was Ben in place. 

He thinks everyone might just be a lot happier then, himself included. Maybe then he could stop waking up each day with a stone in the pit of his stomach, wondering which pundit has an opinion on him today.

He staggers out the bathroom, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. His elbow brushes against the scrap of paper Ben had written on for him, and Jos rips it off, crumpling it into a small ball and throwing it into the bin.

He doesn't deserve it.

~

Jos arranges for some keeping practice on the eve of the second test with Ben, figuring it's better to ask for help directly than have a costly drop again. They've gotten closer after the day Ben discovered his post-it note, sitting together for meetings and practicing together, Ben still slightly awkward but slowly opening up.

Sometimes there's almost a visible shutter in his eyes as he talks over the game proceedings with Jos, smiles a little bit dimmer. It makes Jos think back to the months spent on the bench at the beginning of his career, watching his best friend succeed and wishing he could wholeheartedly feel happy for him without the accompanying pang of envy.

He wants to talk about it, tell Ben he understands, but it's a conversation that's sure to be awkward and one he'd rather not have, so he pushes his musings out his head for the time being.

It's frightfully chilly the morning of their first session, condensation swirling in the air as Jos breathes in and out. He hasn't bundled up today under the presumption that the workout would be enough, but Ben seems to have gone in the opposite direction of thought, standing in the middle of the pitch with a beanie jammed firmly on his head and scarf wrapped around his mouth and neck.

The tip of his nose is red, and it's an oddly endearing image.

"Right, uh," Ben begins awkwardly, "I'm not really sure how to begin this, but I guess I'll watch you do some basic drills and see if I have any pointers?" He suggests.

Jos nods, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. "Yeah," he says, "that sounds good."

They both do a short preliminary warm-up, with Ben stopping periodically to adjust his winter clothing as he shivers, not adjusted to the cold yet.

"You'd think for someone raised in England their entire life you'd be better with the cold by now," he teases, watching Ben's ears darken in embarrassment.

"Shut up," he mutters half-heartedly, but the corner of his lips are slightly upturned. "I have poor circulation."

They end the warmup and drag out keeping equipment from the shed, and Ben sets it up for the drills. 

"Okay so we'll just do a standard seamers keeping exercise here," he explains, placing the ball in the throwing stick.

Jos nods and settles behind the stumps, as Ben starts lobbing the balls towards him. For the most part, they're all fairly easy to receive, and he manages to dive for a few that Ben purposely fires into difficult spaces. 

"Good?" He asks, out of breath.

Ben nods thoughtfully, leaning back on one leg. "Yeah, good. I mean you knew your problem wasn't against seamers anyway, so I expected you to smash this."

Jos preens, slightly surprised by the warmth the compliment instills in him.

To be told he's good by his teammates who really don't understand wicketkeeping beyond see ball catch ball versus being complimented by the best wicketkeeper in the country are two entirely different feelings. 

"But," Ben cautions, " you do keep your feet rooted to the ground a bit much. You make up for it with your athleticism but you wouldn't have to dive as much if you could just do some quick side steps to the ball instead of staying in place."

Jos nods, acknowledging the advice. He's already identified it as a weakness with Bruce, the wicketkeeping coach, but he finds it difficult to react and move his feet in time when the ball deviates unexpectedly. 

It's also why he's less confident standing up to the stumps, which he knows it's coming up next.

"So, spin bowling. I think you told me before that you don't like standing up to the stumps?"

"It's definitely not my favourite part of wicketkeeping, no," Jos grumbles, but he doesn't really mean it.

He enjoys the challenge of it and having the ability to impact the game in so many ways but that's what also makes it so terrifying. If you're off the ball for even a second when standing up to the stumps you can lose your team the game.

After the last match, Jos is intimately familiar with what happens when you mess it up.

"Well let's see if we can do anything about that," Ben states with a grin.

He begins throwing them down again, this time rolling his wrist slightly in order to add an element of spin on the ball.

Jos thinks he does fine with most of them, but he has to dive full stretch for some that hit a rough patch of grass and deviate suddenly, and some he misses outright by the tip of his flailing fingers. 

"You're not moving your feet again," Ben calls, and Jos obligingly tries to make an effort to increase his footwork, but after a few deliveries he's so caught up in just focusing on catching them that he forgets about his feet.

"Shit, I forgot again, sorry," he says as Ben puts the ball down.

Ben shakes his head, waving the apology off. "Nah it's fine, we'll get it." He unwinds his scarf and throws it down somewhere behind him as he walks over behind the stumps.

His hands come out from where they've been jammed securely in his pockets onto Jos' shoulders, pressing down slightly. "You're a bit too tense here, I had the same problem too a couple of years ago. I know it's probably the same thing you always hear but the most important thing is to stay relaxed behind the stumps. If you carry any stored up energy in your body you won't be quick enough to react."

Ben's hands have stayed on Jos' shoulders throughout his input, warm pinpricks floating down his body from where his fingers can be felt through the cotton of Jos' shirt. 

Ben coughs suddenly, seemingly realising he's been holding onto him for too long and steps back. "Yeah, that's uh about it. You just kind of have to be floppy."

"Floppy?" Jos raises his eyebrows, teasing him for the word choice, and Ben's ears go pink again.

"You know what I mean." He grumbles. "Here, throw some to me and I'll show you what I do. See if it works for you."

Still grinning slightly, Jos makes his way over to the other end of the pitch and starts loading up and firing balls. The second the first ball comes towards him, Ben's body visibly slackens, all the tension released as if he's melting somehow in the cold morning.

Every delivery is met with dancing footwork and when necessary, quick reactions, his limbs shooting out at all angles to stop balls that threaten to sneak past. He only dives once, and it's for a ball that Jos himself probably would've just left for first slip.

He gets it though, secure in one glove as he dives full stretch. Ben looks up from where he's face-planted in the grass post-dive, eyes alight with glee.

This is what he loves, Jos realises, this is why Ben plays cricket.

For Jos it's always been batting, standing at the crease with 10 overs left in the chase, sweat slicking the bat handle as he gears up for the next ball. He lives for the sound of the ball cracking against willow and the resulting tremor that shivers through his body all the way to the ground.

He likes wicketkeeping but was forced into it as a child rather than pursuing it out of any real passion for the art of it. 

Ben, on the other hand, thrives on it. He watches him receive ball after ball, and even though they're out here at 6 am on a blustery English morning doing basic drills, the joy at simply doing what he loves lights up his face.

Jos should probably stop throwing down deliveries now and try and imitate his technique, but he wants to chase the warmth in his chest that Ben's joy brings.

"Just a few more, I think I'm getting the hang of it!" He calls, and Ben grins blindingly in response.

~

"They've provided more blankets for our room!" Ben exclaims delightedly a day later, upon coming back to the room to discover a neatly stacked pile of blankets at the foot of his bed. "This is great, I feel like I'm always freezing in this room."

"You would be freezing in the Sahara Desert, your bones are almost made of ice," Jos says mildly, adjusting his reading glasses as he turns the page of his book.

He can almost hear Ben rolling his eyes at him, but his ire is soon forgotten as he unfolds one of the blankets, wrapping it around his upper body with a contented sigh.

Jos bites the inside of his cheek to prevent a while spreading on his face as he listens to Ben shuffling around the hotel room with his blanket trailing behind him on the floor.

He hopes he remembered to remove the price tags before he folded and placed them down.

"It's a bit strange they didn't put any out for you." Ben muses, watching Jos with confusion as his shoulders shake in silent mirth.

"Maybe they just don't like me. I did have to regretfully turn down a marriage proposal from one of the cleaning staff, I don't think she's looked at me the same since." He offers.

Ben's eyes light up with recognition. "The one with red hair? I think she must have about ten different fiancee's at this point, she propositioned me by the stairs-"

~

England win in rip-roaring fashion in the second test, with Broad and Woakes catapulting them to a win with fantastic new-ball spells. Stokes soaks up all the attention with his superlative century and his bowling, and Jos is glad to go under the radar for a test.

He hit 40 and 0, the latter while trying to swing at a seaming new ball, so not a bad effort overall he supposes. He's honestly just glad that he was relatively clean behind the stumps. The ball is wobbling late on its way over now, and with the light conditions, he sometimes loses sight of the ball altogether.

"Why'd you take down your note?" Ben asks later when they're alone in their hotel room.

Jos shrugs. "I didn't deserve it. Yours still holds true, what have I done with the bat recently to be anywhere near the best?"

Ben watches him with sharp eyes. "Well the best is a matter of opinion, isn't it? You may not see it right now, but I do. And I'm telling you, you're the best batsman I've ever seen. I don't care if you don't agree."

Jos looks up at him in surprise.

He speaks with conviction about Jos' skills, more confidence in his Test abilities than Jos himself has had in a very long time. He wants to know whatever Ben is seeing in him so that he can reach inside himself and bring it out and make himself worthy of his kind words.

"Thanks," Jos says quietly, after a moment. "I think I needed that."

Ben inclines his head. "Of course. Can't have Jos bloody Buttler thinking he's a bad batsman."

Jos cracks a smile at that, but his mind is far away, running through different possibilities and technical adjustments in his head. 

Even if he doesn't feel like the best batsman around right now, he'll make it so that he becomes the best. He's determined to put back up Ben's note and look at it when he gets up in the morning without feeling a plunge of guilt in his stomach.

"No," he agrees, "I guess we don't want that."

~

Determined to make the most of the short break between the last two tests, he approaches Sibley the next morning.

Out of perhaps anyone in the team, Sibley characterises the cricket adage of 'bat long, bat once'. He's not the most flashy batsman around, but you'd be better off just forfeiting the game than ever getting him to lose his patience and drive at a ball.

Jos admires that quality, so he pulls Sibley aside and asks if they can have a net session together and if he could give Jos a few pointers on how he ensures longevity at the crease.

Sibley looks flustered as he agrees, and Jos realises it's probably a bit strange for a senior batsman to approach someone who's barely been in the team for a couple of months for advice. He's never really bought into the seniority complex though, it doesn't really matter how much experience you have if someone is naturally better than you in an area.

Ollie's only 22, but everyone in and around the team already knows that he's going to be a future great. When they bat together, Ollie takes the leading role in the partnership, shepherding him around in a way that might be vaguely insulting if Jos had any hang-ups about that sort of thing.

But he doesn't, and he'll ask for advice and take help from whoever he thinks is most suited to give it.

"Will you show me your reverse sweep?" Sibley asks, scratching the back of his neck self-consciously. "I mean, I can do one, it's just… not very good. You make yours look really easy so I was wondering if you had any tips."

"So it's sort of a, you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours type situation?" Jos jokes, but Sibley's eyes flare in alarm.

"You don't have to if you don't want to!" He stammers, "Just you know, if we have some free time after, or like-"

Jos cuts him off, laughing. "It's really not a problem, I was just teasing. Sure, I'll teach you the reverse sweep, and you can show me how you last 300 balls at the crease."

He picks up his equipment bag and Sibley follows him closely as he begins to trek down to the training ground.

"I can teach you the ramp shot as well if you want. Imagine ramping Shannon Gabriel for six and seeing the steam pour out his ears."

"Oh, uh, it's definitely an image, but I'm not sure I could pull it off."

"Have a bit of faith in yourself," Jos reassures him, somewhat hypocritically.

~

So he talks with Sibley, and he talks with Joe and Stokes and their batting coach, seeking out as much help as he can.

After he's done, he combs through their combined advice and videos of his batting from the previous two tests and comes to the decision of changing his trigger moment.

He drags Ben down to the nets with him to practice, promising to throw down a couple for his batting practice as well.

Ben, as always, is wrapped up in a thick hoodie with his hands jammed deep in his pockets, shivering in the non-existent cold. The hoodie is slightly big on him, and he keeps bringing his hands up to adjust the length of his sleeves as they slide down his wrists.

"How would you ever survive a northern winter?" Jos asks in mock despair, laughing as the other man flips him off, before quickly returning his hand to his pocket.

He gets his gear on and settles in front of the stumps, tapping his bat against the ground. He consciously angles his front foot towards an imaginary mid-on as Ben loops up a ball to him, and he brings his arms through the ball in an on-drive, shooting it firmly back past Ben's feet.

In the videos he'd analysed of his own batting, he'd noticed that he tended to lose balance a lot, especially when playing shots around mid-on. With the new front foot adjustment, he found that his balance was a lot better, and allowed him to drive and play shots more easily in regions that he would have struggled to access before.

Jos asks for some more, and with every shot cracked off his bat with more ease than the last, his confidence rises.

This is it, he thinks.

This is the step he needed in order to regain his elusive 2018 red ball form that both he and seemingly the rest of the country have been searching for.

Ben wanders forward in order to collect a ball that's rolled near Jos' feet, telling him that he can have five more throw downs before they switch.

Jos starts to reply, but his mouth goes dry and he forgets what he's about to say as Ben leans down to pick up the ball, exposing the label of his hoodie tickling the back of his neck.

Oh, Jos thinks distantly.

That's why his hoodie looked so big on him today.

Ben comes back up, covering the JC Buttler marked on the tag of his hoodie. "Earth to Jos!" He says, wiggling the ball in front of his face to get his attention.

Jos blinks, zoning back into the conversation.

He wonders if he should tell Ben about the hoodie mix up, but he tells himself there's no point this late in practice anyway. It's not as if he can go change it now.

Besides, and this is the reason Jos is least keen to acknowledge, he quite likes the sight of Ben half swallowed up in Jos' hoodie.

"Five more sounds great." He agrees readily, and Ben shoots him a look of confusion at his sudden enthusiasm, walking back to the other end of the net.

~

Just as the second test was dominated by headlines of Ben Stokes, Stuart is the driving force in the final decider, rolling the West Indies in the first innings and claiming his 500th test wicket in the second.

They celebrate the series win and his achievement through the night, and Jos quietly celebrates his first half-century in about a year to himself. He thinks it might be slightly pathetic to feel such joy at hitting a 50, but he hopes it's a sign of things to come, of progress.

"What are you doing, sitting in the corner by yourself?" Mark asks, half-shouting to be heard over the music. "Come dance!"

Jos laughs, getting up from his seat, and Mark cheers, grabbing Jos' hand and doing a drunken twirl before flitting off to where it appears Jofra is trying to teach Dom and Zak how to floss. The tutorial is not going well, to say the least, and is definitely not helped by the teacher cracking up every other minute at their attempts.

Behind the group, he can just about make out Ben sitting with his feet up on the bench, sipping lazily at his beer bottle while scrolling through his phone. 

"Why aren't you dancing?" Jos approaches the other man, who startles and almost drops his phone.

"Oh, I'm not really a dancer." Ben clarifies, rubbing the back of his neck, but Jos is having none of it.

"Don't have to be a dancer to dance." He argues, pointing at Stuart for proof. "That man has so many limbs flying around he looks like a modern-day Eldritch monster on the dancefloor."

Ben snorts at that, grip loosening on the neck of his beer bottle.

"You don't have to dance, just come and join the rest of us." Jos wheedles, and after a beat Ben nods, setting his beer down.

He grabs Ben's hands, pulling him to his feet with a surprised grunt. "Hi there," Jos says, realising he's brought their faces a lot closer with that move than he'd intended.

"Hi," Ben replies, lips quirking up. His breath fans over Jos' face, and it smells like a mix of beer and that disgustingly minty toothpaste Jos knows he loves.  
Strangely though, he doesn't mind the smell of it now.

Ben steps out of Jos' grip, smoothing down the front of his shirt. "I think I might dance after all," he decides, looking out at the rest of the squad going wild. "I'm not really much of a dancer like I said, but everyone seems to be having fun, so…"

"Go for it!" Jos cheers, delighted.

And he does go for it, he really does.

Ben Foakes does most things in life with grace and poise. He keeps wicket with the lightness of a feather, and bats with dancing footwork and elegance. Even when buttering toast in the morning, he always seems to have a perfectly layered, even spread on both sides, compared to Jos who slaps half a stick of cold butter on, tries to spread it, and calls it a day.

He is the embodiment of technical perfection in many activities.

Dancing, clearly, is not one of them.

Jos watches with mild horror as Ben flails around, becoming more sweaty and dishevelled by the second as he twists and turns on the dancefloor as if fighting imaginary opponents.

"Oh my," Jack utters from behind him, and they both stand there for a second and watch the other man.

Still, despite his ridiculous moves he manages to look smouldering under the dim lights and Jos is mildly jealous of how unfairly good-looking he is all the time. 

Ben's eyes fly open as he's smacked by Stuart's elbow, who appears to be attempting to limbo.

He blinks unsteadily, but then his eyes zero in on Jos even through the crowd of their team, and Ben gestures for him to come to join him, his face bright and open in an expression Jos has never seen before.

Jos smiles and makes his way through the crowd, and Ben reaches out to grab his hand and drag the last few inches towards him. Spirals of warmth spread up his wrist from where their hands are joined, and when he interlocks their fingers the warmth reaches his chest and makes it feel like it's about to burst.


	2. Chapter 2

The squad coast on the happiness of a series win, preparing for the Pakistan series with bright spirits. Jos feels like everything in his life is finally starting to turn around, so of course that's when everything starts tumbling down.

His sister texts him during a team meeting, letting him know that their dad has been a bit unwell recently, his heart problem acting up again. He texts her back worriedly, but she reassures him that everything's fine for now, and that she would let him know if his condition changes.

Silverwood coughs pointedly, and Jos puts his phone back into his pockets, resolving to speak to his family later that night and puts it out of his mind for the moment.

"So as you can see here, when he leans forward in that stance it leaves a fairly sizeable gap between bat and pad- so I'm thinking we focus on getting Stuart to swing it back in and pin him lbw." Joe explains, gesturing behind him to the faintly grainy projection of Babar Azam leaning in forward defense.

"Don't we have any more recent clips of him than this?" Jimmy asks, scratching his beard. "I've heard he's changed his stance recently, do we have anything from the intrasquad stream they did?"

Joe shakes his head, bouncing the projector remote between hands. "Not allowed to store any of it apparently, and it's too low quality to really discern anything of his technique from it anyway." He clears his throat, continuing. "But from the information we do have, I think the best course of action for Azam would be the inswinger and getting him lbw as I discussed."

There's a hum around the room, players nodding and generally seeming to concede to the plan. Sam jolts suddenly, as if he'd been startled out of sleep and Jos notes the red mark on his cheek from where it'd been laying on his arm.

"Everyone got that then?" Joe asks, ready to end the meeting but Jos stops him, putting his hand up before he speaks.

"I'm not sure that would work," Jos offers, and Sam closes his eyes disconsolately, no doubt upset that another time-consuming obstacle has appeared between him and his bed. "I'm not too familiar with Azam, but from what I've seen he's got a big problem fishing balls outside off. I think he's improved it a bit recently, but he's a stroke player at heart, and if we dangle some balls outside off he'll be tempted to drive, and will nick off."

Joe purses his lips, considering this.

Ben is fidgeting two seats across from Jos, opening and closing his mouth as if he wants to say something but keeps deciding against it.

"Ben, why don't you tell us what you think." Jos says suddenly. "You played against him in the county competition when he was with Somerset, right?"

The tips of Ben's ears flush pink as everyone's attention is suddenly turned on him, and he slowly nods. "Yeah, we played him and Somerset a couple of times. I was going to say that uh, with him we generally tended to try and get him to drive at balls, he can resist for a while but he'll generally tend to nick off more than any other form of dismissal."

"Well if someone who has game experience against him says it works, I'm all for it," Stokes declares, and as is Stokes' effect, soon everyone else agrees and they reach a consensus on the plan before they begin filing out the meeting room.

Jos feels an elbow knock against his as he makes his way down the hall, and he looks up to see Ben walking alongside him.

"Thanks," Ben says, "I wasn't sure how to bring up what I wanted to say back there, or if it would even be appreciated in a squad with so much more international experience than me."

Jos wrinkles his nose in distaste. "We're the same age, and we're all learning everyday, international experience or not. Your feedback is always valued, trust me."

He puts a hand on Ben's forearm, only a light touch to fully get his attention. "You were selected for a reason, remember? You deserve to be here, and to be heard."

"Right," Ben smiles self-deprecatingly, rubbing his eyes with the palm of hands. "Sometimes it's just hard to remember you deserve something when you yourself think that you don't."

Jos doesn't answer, unsure of how he's meant to advise him in this when he himself is yet to find a solution.

He hopes that if Ben finds an answer somewhere down the line that he'll share it.

~

He'd talked to his family, and was relieved to hear that his dad's health was slowly but surely improving. His dad had chided him over the phone for 'worrying needlessly', telling him to focus that time on training so he can go out there and show everyone what he can do.

Jos just laughs and promises to try his best, hanging up after a couple more minutes.

He scrolls down message threads in his phone in search of his aunt's contact to send her the details of his dad's medication, but his eyes catch on a message thread low down, a red 1 next to the contact name to indicate an unread message.

It's not unread, Jos knows it says happy birthday, but he's just never opened it since it came through last year.

He opens the message, Kiesy written in bold letters at the top of the thread. 

All the messages for the last five years are perfunctory holiday and birthday wishes, the bare bones left of their friendship encapsulated in the twice a year polite texts. If he scrolls up much further, he knows he'll see thousands of messages between them at all times of the day, commentating on matches and making fun of each other, interspersed by a phone icon indicating a call had taken place.

He doesn't think about Craig too often these days, but going through their past leaves him with a fierce longing in his chest for the relationship that neither of them truly appreciated until it was gone.

Well, he thinks, he has a good success rate so far this summer in mending friendships with English keepers. Why not go two for two?

' _Hey,_ ' he types, ' _I've been trying to play chess with the other lads but none of them insult my moves enough to really get me in the mood while playing. Want to get a beer and have a game after I get out the bubble?_ '

Jos sends it and pockets his phone with a smile. 

~

Maybe he got too complacent, because that's when things really start going wrong for him.

He drops a catch in the first test against Pakistan.

And another one.

(And another one).

Jos tears off his gloves as soon as he gets inside, throwing them somewhere vaguely in the direction of his kit. He'll retrieve them later, but he doesn't want to even see them right now.

He can see Joe approaching him out of the corner of his eye, presumably to console him about the dropped catches, but he just wants to be alone so Jos ignores the other man's words as he walks quickly out the dressing room.

At least with Dowrich, when Jos missed a catch it was somewhat better because people looked at his opposite number and how much he struggled and realised that it was hard, and cut Jos slack by comparison. Dowrich had jumped and dived behind the stumps and had tried his best, but England is a cruel place to keep in, especially for visitors.

Not Rizwan though.

Jos had known about his skills, had heard he was an excellent keeper, but to see it up close was another thing. It's as close to a flawless performance as there ever can be when keeping- the only person he can really compare him to that he's seen play in his time would be the man who shares a hotel room with him.

So when Jos makes mistakes, it's even worse than usual because of the natural comparison between keeping performance.

His phone buzzes in his pocket, breaking him out of his thoughts.

He opens it to find a string of messages and missed calls from various family members that he'd received during play. Scrolling quickly through them, Jos realises that his dad has been taken to hospital. Most of the messages are requests for him to call back as soon as possible, his sister including the hospital name and room in her message.

For some reason that's the thing that does it, seeing the hospital name written in block letters and fully realising that his dad is in hospital.

His phone falls from his slack fingers, colliding with the hardwood floor with a sickening crack. He doesn't hear it, static raging in his ears as he slides down the wall, all the way to the floor.

It's suddenly all too much, the pressure, the dropped catches, his dad's health, and it all crashes over him like a tidal wave, holding him down in its depths and choking him. He can't breathe, fingers scrabbling desperately at the material of his sweater as he chokes in short bursts of air.

Distantly, Jos is aware that he's having a panic attack, but in that moment he can't think rationally, all of his focus going towards trying to breathe and the faint tingling in his limbs. 

Footsteps clatter towards him, and Ben's worried face appears directly in his line of vision as he leans down. "You okay, Jos?" He asks, but Jos doesn't reply, can't reply.

Ben's eyes widen in understanding, and he settles himself fully on the floor. "Do you have any strategies you normally use to get through this?"

Jos shakes his head, this is the first time he's felt anything like it.

"Okay," Ben says, "that's fine. Let's just see if you can match my breathing then."

He breathes in deep, controlled inhales and exhales, and at first Jos can't keep up, keeps choking and ruining his rhythm, almost feeling as if he's forgotten how to breathe normally.

Ben stills sits there patiently, breathing in and out, and after what feels like an hour Jos is able to match his rhythm, finally feeling like an invisible weight on his chest has been lifted.

He's kept his arms to himself, careful to not to touch Jos as he guides him, but Jos leans forward unsteadily to place a hand on top of Ben's, wanting something to ground him.

"Better?" Ben asks, and he nods, not trusting himself to speak.

He silently pushes an open bottle of water towards Jos, who receives it gratefully and takes a swig, hands still shaking.

"What was that about?" Ben's eyes are furrowed with concern as he looks up at him.

Jos shrugs, clearing his throat. "Everything, really. This summer has just been a lot to deal with." He takes an unsteady breath. "And I've just found out my dad is… he's in hospital. I don't know how serious it is, but he's had heart problems before as well."

"Oh, Jos. I'm so sorry to hear that." Ben scoots closer to him, tentatively wrapping an arm around the other man's shoulders. "Is there anything I can do?"

"I won't get dispensation to leave this late into the game. There's nothing I can do about it, or that anyone can do. I think, honestly, I'm just going to have to bear it and play the next innings."

Ben purses his lips, rubbing circles into Jos' shoulder as he thinks of possible solutions.

"But for now, this is enough." Jos finishes tiredly, leaning his body into Ben's hold.

He stiffens for a beat, then relaxes and adjusts grip lower on Jos' body so that they can sit more comfortably against the wall. "Just happy to help." Ben murmurs lowly, watching strands of blonde hair rustle against Jos' forehead as his breath hits it.

~

He thinks he might get away with not batting the next day as Sibley and Joe settle into a 50 run partnership on the last day, but as always wickets tumble in a heap and he's sent out to try and salvage the remains of the match.

Jos watches from the other end as the ball suddenly spits off the surface, rearing up onto Ollie's glove. The batsman jerks back, going into a half-limbo while trying to lean out the way, but contact has already been made.

The ball is swallowed up by the slip cordon, and the sound of the Pakistan team cheering fights its way past the distant ringing in his ears. Unplayable. That was absolutely unplayable, and they know it.

Ollie knows it too, leaning disconsolately against the handle of his bat. He shrugs, shaking his head as he begins the walk back to the pavillion. "Good luck." He mutters as he passes him, and Jos laughs without humour.

His wicket leaves Chris and Jos at the crease, neither of which have been in fine batting form recently to say the least. The rest of the match is just a formality for Pakistan's eventual win, and by the look on the faces in the dressing room, they're feeling it too.

He scuffs the edge of the crease with his bat absentmindedly, eyes catching on the black marker scrawled on the end of his bat handle. 

Jos knows he's going to get dropped if he doesn't make runs here. He knows that realistically he should have been dropped after the Ashes or even after South Africa, and is living on borrowed time. He doesn't even open social media anymore, tired of filtering through the death threats and posts tagging him directly about his poor performance.

There's only two outcomes here- he makes runs, he stays in the team. He doesn't, he's dropped.

It's simple, there's no pressure and uncertainty about his place. Whatever happens will happen.

He shrugs. 

Fuck it.

Jos wasn't picked to be a nitty gritty Test batsman anyway.

He tells Chris about the change of approach and immediately sets off at a strike rate of 100, creaming the seamers for successive cover drives that seem to whistle as they fly from the middle of his bat.

At first the Pakistan team aren't too worried, they still have an 170 run lead up and the aggressive style of play is more likely to induce a wicket anyhow. Except that expected wicket never comes.

Chris hunts down anything short and wide and sends it straight back to the boundary, guarding the off-side area like a bull-dog. They bring Shah on to try and switch things up, but he doesn't trouble Jos, who is already set.

He sees each delivery spinning towards him in slow-motion, tracking the delivery with his eyes until the moment he pounces on it. Shah bowls into the rough, and Jos sweeps him.

Trying again, Shah comes around the wicket, and again, bowls into the rough.

This time, Jos reverse sweeps him.

He openly laughs at Shah's look of shock, and quickly raises his bat to the dressing room as he raises his 50. Most of the team are out on the balcony, clapping with grins, but his gaze focuses on Ben, who is leaning on the railing as he claps.

Jos nods at him in acknowledgement, and Ben nods dutifully back. "60 more!" Joe hollers, and they break eye contact.

Jos touches his hand to his forehead in a mock salute to the captain, turning back to the crease.

Chris reaches his own 50 not long after with successive crashing boundaries, and his grin is wide and gleeful as he raises his bat. Quite a nice redemption for the both of them with the bat, Jos thinks, but reminds himself that Chris has been doing himself a lot more favours this match with his bowling than Jos has been doing with his wicketkeeping.

He's made runs now, has made two fifties in a row. It still might not be enough.

It was about the runs before, not his issues with the gloves. Now it might not be the runs, but his keeping that forces management's hand into dropping him.

The thought is strangely freeing.

Jos tries not to ponder too long on what that means for him, and continues at a quick pace with Chris, piling the runs on. It's a while before he looks at the scoreboard again, and his mouth dries when he sees 25 runs left lit up in neon on the board.

They've somehow managed to save this test from the absolute brink, and bring it tantalisingly close to the close. They could actually win this.

No, from this position, they _should_ win this.

He didn't think they had a prayer when he'd walked into the crease, and had found an odd sort of comfort in their inevitable loss, knowing he could play the way he felt most comfortable because it didn't really matter.

But it did matter, and it certainly matters now, 25 runs away from the finish line.

He can feel his body tightening and his muscles clenching, seemingly unable to get into the same free-flowing rhythm he was striking with before. Jos keeps flashing looks at the scoreboard, watching the digits tick down as they chip away at the target.

Only 20 away now.

Shah comes around the wicket this time, and Jos bends down to sweep as usual to rotate the strike. This one hits a rough patch and spins unexpectedly, pinning him on the front foot. He knows it's out, but he reviews it anyway, watching the confirmation on the big screen as the projected ball smashes into the stumps.

He's frustrated, of course, that he wasn't able to be there at the end, but a sense of calm washes over him as he heads back to the pavilion. He's done all he can, and he knows Chris will see it through to the end.

For him, individually, only time will tell if his innings was enough.

The next batsman jogs down the stairs, and Jos looks up, expecting to see Dom but instead is met with the sight of Stuart's lanky frame making his way towards the crease.

He's been sent out as a pinch hitter, Jos realises. They've looked at him smacking the West Indies about in the last test and sent him out as a finisher. For some reason, the thought of Stuart fucking Broad coming out as England's official finisher in a test match is hilarious to him, and he can't stop the burst of laughter that escapes as Stuart brushes past him.

"Don't know what you're laughing at mate," Stuart bristles in mock indignance, "I'm going to smash the world's fastest 50 and steal your place in the T20 team, you've no idea of my raw striking ability."

"You're going to get the world's fastest 50 when there's only 20 runs left in the chase?"

"Maybe I'm just that fucking good."

Jos cracks up again and Stuart punches him warmly on the shoulder, congratulating him on his knock. He watches the other man jog briskly to the pitch, eyes raising to view the scoreboard, where his name has just flickered out, replaced with Stuart's.

Looking at the scoreboard now, the sight of it only reminds him- the ball bending his fingers back- the slip of his heels on the grass- Dom looks down in despair as another chance is dropped off his bowling- his body thuds onto the floor, the ball rolling out of reach towards the boundary.

He turns and begins his walk up the stairs.

~

They win.

Chris, and Dom are there at the end, fists raised aloft as an outside edge spears a gap in the slips and earns them the victory.

His sister texts him a picture of their dad in the hospital bed, sitting up, face pink as he grins widely into the camera with two thumbs up in response to their win.

He yells congratulations in a short audio message, and Jos lets it play on loop as he changes out his batting gear. His dad looks healthy, and his sister tells him that he should be discharged this evening, bringing a smile to Jos' face.

The rest of the team charge into the dressing room and soon he's lost in a huddle, face pressed into what he thinks is Mark's armpit and someone's hand very low down on him as he's dogpiled by his teammates. He manages to extricate himself, promising to return once he's cleaned up.

After the initial rounds of celebration, Jos heads to his room for a quick shower, wanting to wash off the grime from a day's worth of batting. He goes to open his wardrobe to pick out fresh clothes, but stops when he realises that there's a post-it note on the door.

It's not the same scrap of paper that Jos tore down after the first West Indies test, that one he's certain is still in the bin. This post-it note is blue, and on it is scribbled a slightly different message than the first. 

He smiles softly as he reads it.

It's been written in ink pen, and under the glare of the hotel lights it's clear that it still hasn't dried fully yet. Ben had to have written it within the last five minutes or so, around the time Jos got out.

He closes the cupboard door fully with a click. His shower can wait, there's something more important he needs to do.

~

Jos manages to catch Joe before he heads down for an interview, cornering him by the stairs.

"Have you seen Ben around anywhere?" He asks, panting slightly.

Joe hums in thought. "Stokesy or Foakes? If it's Stokes I'd advise you wait at least half an hour, he's disappeared into a supply closet with Mark. I don't know what's going on in there but it's probably something unholy."

Jos wrinkles his nose at that information. "No, I was looking for Foakes but thanks for the heads up."

"What's a captain for, if not to warn my teammates about fellow team members screwing in public areas. Now that I think about it, I should probably have a talk with them about that-"

"Joe!" Jos interrupts his captain's rambling, who shakes his head as if trying to wipe his brain clean like an etch a sketch.

"Sorry, right, Ben. I know he went back to your hotel room after you got out, he got up all suddenly and said there was something he had to do. He never came back, but I think I saw someone that looked like him out by the west side of the hotel, on the pitch we use for football."

"You're a lifesaver." 

"All in a day's work." Joe grins, turning on his heel and ambling to the foot of the stairs.

Jos watches him consideringly, and then calls out to him as he's halfway down the stairs. "I never said thanks."

Joe turns back, puzzled. "For telling you where Ben is?"

"No, not that. For, uh, for standing by me. Even through my rough patches in the Ashes and South Africa, when everyone else was questioning my spot you defended me, and backed me even when it put you in a bad light." Jos takes a breath. "It's not been easy, these past couple of months, but I think I can finally begin paying back for your faith. I might never be able to produce an innings of 150 or more runs and 300 balls, but I can do… this. Hopefully." He says, referring to his match winning innings.

Joe appears slightly taken aback by the heartfelt sentiment, but quickly adjusts. "Of course, you numpty. I told you we would wait however long it took. A blind man could suss out your talent just by prodding you with his stick."

Jos opens his mouth to reply, but one of the commentators calls Joe down impatiently to be mic'd up for an interview, and the captain gives a hasty wave and mumbles his goodbyes before jogging quickly down the stairs. "Stop being so down on yourself!" He yells as he goes, and Jos laughs.

~

He finds Ben by the west side of the hotel as Joe had said, sitting with his knees up on the grassy field. His eyes are closed, face bathed in orange and yellow tones from the setting sun, a can of Carsling nestled by his feet.

He's beautiful.

Jos' breath hitches at the sight and the sound startles Ben, who opens his eyes. He smiles when he sees Jos, and pats the area next to him in invitation.

"What are you doing back here?" Jos asks as he sits down, rolling his shoulders back with a contented sigh.

Ben shrugs. "Nothing really, just wanted to sit and think about some things. Was done with 12th man duties so I thought I'd come down to the field. Why are you here?"

"I came to find you."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Jos chuckles nervously and rubs the back of his neck. "Now that I'm here though, I don't really know what I wanted to say. I think I just wanted to see you."

"Oh," Ben says again, but this time instead of puzzlement the word is inflected with affection. "Well I'm here, so you can gaze upon me." He smirks, flipping open the tab of his beer.

He knows the correct response here would be to roll his eyes, to lightly punch him on the shoulder and laugh. But he doesn't.

"Yeah, you're here now." Jos says softly, contemplatively.

Ben looks at him with a furrowed expression, and Jos steals his beer with a quick swipe to distract him before Ben can question his odd behaviour.

"Hey!" Ben's voice cracks as he yells, and he flushes at Jos' resulting call cackle. "You West Country lot are all the same, bunch of grubbers."

He reaches ineffectively at Jos' outstretched hands, staggering to his knees as he tries to pull the other man down. His hand finds a grip in Jos' shirt and he pulls the material, falling down suddenly at the momentum shift as Jos comes careening down on top of him.

Jos is distantly aware of the can of beer flying from his hands and rolling away on the grass, slowly emptying itself out.

Ben groans beneath him in what he thinks is pain, but is instead apparently mourning for his beer. "I paid 7 fucking pounds for that, you better buy me a new one."

"Huh?"

"My beer? That you just wasted?"

"Oh right, yeah I'll get you another one." Jos rolls off the other man, silently wondering if it's too forward to say that buying him a beer is all he's wanted to do for weeks.

Except, ideally not a can, but a drink, at a bar or a restaurant, somewhere where they could sit down and talk, and then maybe dance and he could watch Ben go all out on a proper dancefloor, and come join him.

In an ideal world, maybe he would.

In an ideal world, he would sidle up to Ben after a match, ask him out with a pre-planned speech because he's never been good with talking on the fly, and they could have dinner, or watch a movie or something.

But in an ideal world they wouldn't be competing for the same place.

In an ideal world, Jos wouldn't see the lingering resentment in Ben's eyes as they talked through the events of the day, the burning desire to play, to keep, to bat- but it would have to be in Jos' place.

He's been in this situation before, a tangible bridge extending between him and someone he wanted to call a friend, turning into a rival. Craig was accepted into the England side first, but Jos knew he was a bigger hitter, knew that if they gave him the chance he could lock down the place.

It turned into something ugly between them, Jos leaving his county without letting Craig know, both getting picked at random in limited over sides in alternating matches. It ended of course with Craig's injury, and in the end Jos had the spot.

He'd only set fire to a decade long friendship and watched it burn in order to get there.

It was a hollow, pyrrhic victory that left the taste of blood in his mouth every time he saw Craig's face appear in his social media or in the news.

But he's older now, and determined not to let it happen like that again. He's managed to reach out and begin taping up the gaping holes between him and Craig, but he doesn't want to even let it get to that stage with him and Ben, ever.

"I feel like I've never really said this, but thanks for supporting me and helping me develop my keeping in the bubble even when it's coming at your expense." Jos clears his throat, looking down. "I know it must be… frustrating watching me drop catches out there when you, best keeper in the country, are sitting on the sidelines, knowing you could take those."

Ben's head snaps up in surprise at his frank words. "No, I, it's really not a problem." He sighs. "Yes, of course I want your place but that's just competition, we play the same role. It's not personal."

Jos stays silent, watching him and waiting for him to continue.

"Maybe… I feel it a little bit, a bit of resentment almost. It's partly at you, yes, but a lot of it is frustration from when I was dropped." Ben rips a blade of grass out from near his feet, irritation bleeding into his voice. "I still don't know why I was dropped. I got a century on debut, did fine with the gloves, and I got dropped. I don't know what I did wrong, or what I have to do to get back in." He looks at Jos quickly. "Well, I guess, other than taking your place."

Jos shrugs. "Honestly I think we might all be better off if you did." He voices the thought that's been circling around his head since lockdown.

He hasn't felt like this since 2015, when Alastair came into his room with solemn eyes to tell him he'd been dropped from the squad, and the only emotion he could muster was relief.

Sure, he'd hit some good runs today, but it didn't make up for numerous dropped catches. He constantly feels as if he has one foot out the door in the test team, just waiting for the one of the management to decide enough is enough and push him over the precipice. Some days, he dreams of turning and shutting the door himself.

"Jos, that's-" Ben stops, searching for the right words. "You need to give yourself more credit, especially after today's innings. I might've taken those dropped catches, but I sure as hell wouldn't have been able to do what you did out there. We're fighting for the same spot, but we're completely different players. You might never be able to complete a stumping as fast as me, and I'll probably never be able to reverse sweep a top spinner out the rough. And that's okay."

Jos listens quietly, stunned. "I don't-"

"You read my note right? The new one I put up?" Ben interrupts and Jos nods. "I meant every fucking word." He says fiercely, and Jos feels like his chest is caving in as he looks at the other man.

He leans forward to gently tug Ben into a hug. Ben remains still for a moment in surprise, before relaxing and drawing his arms more securely around Jos. "Thank you." Jos whispers, feeling like a Clinton card with all the thank yous he's been dispensing, but he genuinely means each and every one. 

He's so incredibly grateful to have the support system that he does, in each and every one of his teammates and staff. And well, if one particular person's support inspires something in him that no one else's does, he doesn't need to mention it.

Jos can feel Ben smile against the curve of his cheek, stubble moving and scratching him slightly. 

"Fuck the rivalry." Jos says suddenly, and Ben starts, leaning back. "Let's both play. You go back to county, show them you're class, get picked as a keeper, me as a specialist bat, and we tour Sri Lanka and India together. There's a place for both of us."

Ben is quiet for a moment. "I think I definitely like that thought better than taking your spot."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

Jos hums, feeling the setting sun lather his skin with warmth, hands tangled in blades of grass from where they rest around Ben's back. "Me too."

And for the first time in what feels like years, Jos is content.

~

Back in their hotel room, the blue post-it note shivers gently with the breeze let in from the open window.

_You're the best batsman I've ever seen. I know you don't believe me yet, but I'll keep on telling you until you accept it, however long it takes._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If the cricket terminology is slightly off just take it with a pinch of salt.
> 
> Also I know it seems like I've been kind of harsh on Jos' abilities here, but because it's from his perspective he's very harsh on himself and I wanted to kind of bring that through.
> 
> But anyway if you liked it please comment, they go a long way


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